Taking a tumble as a teenager left Mr Percy with a back pain so bad that at times he cannot climb into a car.

The condition was ­particularly painful the night the Brigg and Goole MP found himself on the sharp end of Joyce’s now infamous drunken outburst but since that night 34-year-old Mr Percy has had not so much as a twinge. “It’s certainly not a form of treatment I would be recommending to other people with back problems,” he said. “It’s also not easy to ­recreate; go into a bar and find a narky, drunk Scotsman.”

Joyce, 51, a former Army major and MP for Falkirk, escaped a jail sentence last week at Westminster Magistrates’ Court after he admitted four counts of assault in the Strangers’ Bar in the Commons. Joyce, who had drunk a bottle of red wine, butted Tory MP for Pudsey, ­Stuart Andrew, and punched Labour whip Phil Wilson, MP for Sedgefield, and attacked two aides, Luke Mackenzie and Ben Maney.

It’s certainly not a form of treatment I would be recommending to other people with back problems

Eric Joyce

The row erupted at 10.30pm on ­February 22 when Joyce started shouting, “There are too many Tories in here”.

Mr Percy said: “I asked very politely: ‘Can I get to my seat please?’ because he (Joyce) was blocking my way. He replied: ‘No.’ He sort of pushed me but I stood firm and was trying to get round him. I was near a table and in an SDHpawkward position. He gave me a big shove against a wall. I landed on my left shoulder, it did not hurt that much then everything else kicked off. Ever since that night my back’s been fine.”

Meanwhile a pain-free Mr Percy joked that the incident was reminiscent of the scene in TV comedy Father Ted when housekeeper Mrs Doyle falls down the stairs, leaps up and shouts: “I’m cured.”

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